Eric Gans

American philosophical anthropologist and literary theorist

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Eric Lawrence Gans

Eric Gans at the Tokyo 2012 Generative Anthropology Society & Conference

Born|  (1941-08-21) August 21, 1941 (age 82)

the Bronx, New York

Education| Bronx High School of Science (1957)
Columbia College (BA, 1960)
Johns Hopkins University (MA, 1961)
Johns Hopkins University (PhD, 1966)
Notable work| The Origin of Language: A Formal Theory of Representation (1981)
Awards| Phi Beta Kappa (junior year)
Woodrow Wilson fellow (1960-61)
Prix de la langue française (1977)
Chevalier des Palmes Académiques (1982)
Institutions| SUNY at Fredonia (1965-67)
Indiana University (1967-69)
UCLA (1969-)
Johns Hopkins University (1978)
Thesis| The Discovery of Illusion: Flaubert's Early Works, 1835-1837 (1966)

Main interests

| Generative anthropology
Literary theory
19th-century French literature

Notable ideas

| The Originary Hypothesis
Generative anthropology
Website| Chronicles of Love and Resentment

Eric Lawrence Gans (born August 21, 1941) is an American philosophical anthropologist and literary theorist.

Over a number of his works, starting with The Origin of Language: A Formal Theory of Representation (1981), Gans outlined a theory of language and culture he calls generative anthropology (GA), which is based on the hypothesis that language originated in an event, and which states that culture is a "generative" development of this event. According to Gans, GA serves as a better foundation for the human sciences than the alternatives of (1) the natural sciences and (2) religion, as it (1) actually explains the origin of language unlike the natural sciences, which, by adopting gradualistic accounts of the origin of language in an attempt to ignore the uniqueness of human language, do not in fact explain the origin of language at all; and (2) nevertheless remains consistent with the natural sciences unlike religion, which, despite actually explaining the origin of language, makes recourse to the supernatural in its explanations.

Gans edits Anthropoetics: The Journal of Generative Anthropology, an open access journal devoted to generative anthropology. Gans also publishes the Chronicles of Love and Resentment, a weblog dedicated to his personal reflections on a range of topics including popular culture, film, contemporary politics, philosophy and religion.

Gans has taught and published on 19th century literature, literary theory, and film in the UCLA Department of French and Francophone studies.

## Generative anthropology[edit]

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### Background[edit]

Generative anthropology grew out of Gans's association with Girard at Johns Hopkins University. Gans was one of Girard's first doctoral students, receiving his PhD in 1966. But it was only on the publication of Violence and the Sacred in 1972 that Gans became interested in Girard's idea of mimetic desire and the connection between violence and the sacred in Girard's work. The concept of mimetic desire forms one of the cornerstones of generative anthropology. Girard argues that human desire is essentially cultural or social in nature, and thus distinct from mere appetite, which is biological. For Girard, desire is triangular in structure, an imitation of the desire of another. Desire, therefore, leads to conflict, when two individuals attempt to possess the same object. In a group, this mimetic conflict typically escalates into a mimetic crisis which threatens the very existence of the group. For Girard, this conflict is resolved by the scapegoat mechanism, in which the destructive energies of the group are purged through the violence directed towards an arbitrarily selected victim. Girard sees the scapegoating mechanism as the origin of human culture and language.

### Originary hypothesis[edit]

Gans agrees with Girard that human language originates in the context of a mimetic crisis, but he does not find the scapegoat mechanism, by itself, as an adequate explanation for the origin of language. Gans hypothesizes that language originates in "an aborted gesture of appropriation", which signifies the desired object as sacred and which memorializes the birth of language, serving as the basis for rituals which recreate the originary event symbolically. The originary sign serves to defer the mimetic violence threatening the group, hence Gans's capsule definition of culture as "the deferral of violence through representation". For a more detailed explanation of the originary hypothesis, see generative anthropology.

### Scene of representation[edit]

For Gans, language is essentially "scenic" in character, that is, structurally defined by a sacred center and human periphery. In the secular culture which develops later, "significance" serves as an attenuated form of the sacred. The scene of representation is a true cultural universal and the basic model for cultural analysis. Generative anthropology attempts to understand the various means by which transcendence or meaning (which is always ethically functional) is created on a scene of representation.

## Life and education[edit]

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Eric Lawrence Gans was born in the Bronx, New York, on August 21, 1941. He went to Columbia University at the age of 16 and received a B.A. in French (summa cum laude) in 1960.[1] Going on to graduate work in Romance languages at Johns Hopkins University, he received his M.A. in 1961 and a Ph.D (with distinction) in 1966. After two years as an assistant professor at Indiana University, he moved to the Department of French at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1969, where he became full professor in 1976. In 1978, he served at Johns Hopkins University as a visiting professor. From 2007 until 2014 he was honored as a distinguished professor at UCLA until he resigned after being found in violation of the UCLA sexual misconduct policy.[2] Since 2015, he is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at UCLA but is forbidden to teach or advise students.[2]

## Critics[edit]

The main source of criticism directed against Gans's work comes from Girard himself, who claims that generative anthropology is just another version of social contract theories of origins. Gans has responded to Girard's criticisms and defended his theory in his books and articles. Others take issue with Gans's conservative political views as expressed in his Chronicles of Love and Resentment. Gans has entered into conversation with contrasting views on Middle Eastern politics in his published dialogue with Ammar Abdulhamid: "A Dialogue on the Middle East and Other Subjects".

## Generative Anthropology Society & Conference[edit]

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The Generative Anthropology Society & Conference (GASC) is a scholarly association formed for the purpose of facilitating intellectual exchange amongst those interested in fundamental reflection on the human, originary thinking, and generative anthropology, including support for regular conferences. GASC was formally organized on June 24, 2010, at Westminster College, Salt Lake City, during the 4th Annual Generative Anthropology Summer Conference.

Since 2007, Generative Anthropology Society & Conference (GASC) has held an annual summer conference on generative anthropology. The 14th summer conference, which was to be held at Bar-Ilan University, was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[3]

* 2007 – Kwantlen University College of University of British Columbia (Vancouver, British Columbia)
* 2008 – Chapman University (Orange, California)
* 2009 – University of Ottawa (Ottawa, Canada)
* 2010 – Westminster College (Salt Lake City, Utah) and Brigham Young University (Provo, Utah)
* 2011 – High Point University (High Point, North Carolina)
* 2012 – International Christian University (Tokyo, Japan)
* 2013 – University of California, Los Angeles
* 2014 – University of Victoria (Victoria, British Columbia)
* 2015 – High Point University (High Point, North Carolina)
* 2016 – Kinjo Gakuin University (Nagoya, Japan)
* 2017 – Stockholm University (Stockholm, Sweden)
* 2018 – Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University (Warsaw, Poland)
* 2019 – NYC Conference Center (New York City)

## Honors[edit]

* Phi Beta Kappa (elected in junior year)
* Woodrow Wilson fellow 1960–61
* Prix de la langue française – Académie française 1977
* Chevalier des Palmes Académiques 1982

## Bibliography[edit]

### Books and monographs[edit]

* The Discovery of Illusion: Flaubert's Early Works, 1835–37. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971. vii + 169 pp.
* Un Pari contre l'histoire: les premières nouvelles de Mérimée (Mosaïque). Paris: Minard (Lettres modernes), 1972. 55 pp.
* Musset et le drame tragique. Paris: J. Corti, 1974. 214 pp.
* Le Paradoxe de Phèdre suivi du "Paradoxe constitutif du roman." Paris: A.G. Nizet, 1975. 143 pp.
* Essais d'esthétique paradoxale. Paris: Gallimard, 1977. 233 pp.
* The Origin of Language: A Formal Theory of Representation. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981. xiii + 314 pp.
* The End of Culture: Toward a Generative Anthropology. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985. 329 pp + index.
* Madame Bovary: The End of Romance. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1989. xiii + 138 pp. + index.
* Science and Faith: The Anthropology of Revelation. Savage, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1990. viii + 129 pp.
* Originary Thinking: Elements of Generative Anthropology. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1993. ix + 219 pp.
* Signs of Paradox: Irony, Resentment, and Other Mimetic Structures. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1997. 222 pp.
* The Scenic Imagination: Originary Thinking from Hobbes to the Present Day. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2007. 220 pp.
* Carole Landis: A Most Beautiful Girl. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 2008. xi + 282 pp.
* A New Way of Thinking: Generative Anthropology in Religion, Philosophy, Art. Aurora, Colo.: Davies Group Publishers, 2011. xvi + 294 pp.
* The Girardian Origins of Generative Anthropology. Imitatio/Amazon Digital Services, 2012. 112 pp.
* bijela krivnja / white guilt. Zagreb, Croatia: Kršćanska Sadašnjost, 2013. 287 pp.
* Les fleurs du mal: a new translation. New York: Spuyten Duyvil, 2015. 584 pp.
* Science and Faith: The Anthropology of Revelation (2nd ed.). Aurora, Colo.: Noesis Press, 2015. 133 pp.
* (with Adam Katz) The First Shall Be The Last: Rethinking Antisemitism. Leiden: Brill/Martinus Nijhoff, 2015. 217 pp.
* The Origin of Language: A New Edition. New York: Spuyten Duyvil, 2019. 154 pp.

### Selected articles[edit]

* "Differences." Modern Language Notes 96 (French, Spring 1981): 792-808.
* "The Culture of Resentment." Philosophy and Literature 8, 1 (April 1984): 55-66.
* "The Unique Source of Religion and Morality." Anthropoetics 1, 1 (June 1995) (http://anthropoetics.ucla.edu/ap0101/gans): 10 pp.
* "Mimetic Paradox and the Event of Human Origin." Anthropoetics 1, 2 (December 1995) (http://anthropoetics.ucla.edu/ap0102/mimesis): 15 pp.
* "Plato and the Birth of Conceptual Thought." Anthropoetics 2, 2 (January 1997) (http://anthropoetics.ucla.edu/Ap0202/plato): 11 pp.
* "The Holocaust and the Victimary Revolution." In Poetics of the Americas: Race, Founding, and Textuality, ed. Bainard Cowan and Jefferson Humphries. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1997, 123-39.
* "Originary Narrative." Anthropoetics 3, 2 (February 1998) (http://anthropoetics.ucla.edu/ap0302/narrative): 10 pp.
* "The Little Bang: The Early Origin of Language." Anthropoetics 5, 1 (Spring/Summer 1999) (http://anthropoetics.ucla.edu/ap0501/gans-2): 6 pp.
* "The Sacred and the Social: Defining Durkheim's Anthropological Legacy." Anthropoetics 6, 1 (Spring/Summer 2000) (http://anthropoetics.ucla.edu/ap0601/durkheim): 7 pp.
* "The Body Sacrificial." In The Body Aesthetic: From Fine Art to Body Modification, ed. Tobin Siebers. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000, 159-78.
* "Originary Democracy and the Critique of Pure Fairness." In The Democratic Experience and Political Violence, ed. David C. Rapoport and Leonard Weinberg. London; Portland: F. Cass, 2001, 308-24.
* (with Ammar Abdulhamid) "A Dialogue on the Middle East and Other Subjects." Anthropoetics 7, 2 (Fall 2001/Winter 2002) (http://anthropoetics.ucla.edu/ap0702/dialog): 16 pp.
* "The Market and Resentment." In Passions in Economy, Politics, and the Media, ed. Wolfgang Palaver and Petra Steinmar-Pösel. Vienna: Lit Verlag, 2005, 85-102.
* "White Guilt, Past and Future." Anthropoetics 12, 2 (Fall 2006/Winter 2007) (http://anthropoetics.ucla.edu/ap1202/wg): 8 pp.
* "On Firstness" and "Generative Anthropology and Bronx Romanticism." In The Originary Hypothesis: A Minimal Proposal for Humanistic Inquiry, ed. Adam Katz. Aurora, Colo.: Davies Group Publishers, 2007, pp. 45-57, 153-64.
* "Generative Anthropology: A New Way of Thinking?" Anthropoetics 13, 2 (Special GATE Issue, Fall 2007) (anthropoetics.ucla.edu/ap1302/1302gans).
* "On the One Medium." In Mimesis, Movies, and Media (Violence, Desire, and the Sacred 3), ed. Scott Cowdell, Chris Fleming, and Joel Hodge. New York; London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015, 7-15.
* "World War II and the Victimary Era." In Apocalypse Deferred: Girard and Japan, ed. Jeremiah L. Alberg. Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 2017, 41-54.
* "Generative Anthropology." In The Palgrave Handbook of Mimetic Theory and Religion, ed. James Alison and Wolfgang Palaver. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017, 447-53.
* "The Screenic." In Mimetic Theory and Film, ed. Paolo Bubbio and Chris Fleming. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019, 109-21.
* "In the Beginning Was the Word: Generative Anthropology as a Religious Anthropology." In Generative Anthropology as Transdisciplinary Inquiry: Religion, Science, Language & Culture, ed. Magdalena Zlocka-Dabrowska and Beata Gaj. Warsaw, Poland: Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 2018, 21-34.

## References[edit]

1. ^ "Eric Gans – Curriculum Vitae". anthropoetics.ucla.edu. November 26, 2019. Retrieved January 24, 2021.
2. ^ a b Preal, Jacob (February 28, 2017). "Professor emeritus found to have violated UC sexual misconduct policy". Daily Bruin. Retrieved March 2, 2017.
3. ^ "GASC". Anthropoetics. UCLA. Retrieved 24 January 2021.

## Further reading[edit]

* Eric Gans. "A Brief Introduction to Generative Anthropology." Anthropoetics: The Journal of Generative Anthropology (https://anthropoetics.ucla.edu/gaintro/), February 16, 2017.
* Peter Goldman. "Why Generative Anthropology?" Chronicles of Love and Resentment (https://anthropoetics.ucla.edu/views/vw445/), July 13, 2013.
* Thomas F. Bertonneau. "Eric L. Gans on Language, Culture, God, and the Market." The Brussels Journal (http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/3995), July 5, 2009.
* Thomas F. Bertonneau. "The Gist of Eric L. Gans: From The Origin of Language to The Scenic Imagination." The Brussels Journal (http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/4167), November 11, 2009.
* Andrew Bartlett. "From First Hesitation to Scenic Imagination: Originary Thinking with Eric Gans." Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture 15/16 (2008-2009): 89-172.
* Thomas F. Bertonneau. "The Origin of Language and the Generative Anthropology of E. L. Gans: An Introduction." Michigan Academician 28, 2 (1996): 419-30.
* Wolfgang Iser. "Anthropological Theory: Gans." In How to Do Theory. Malden, Ma.: Blackwell Pub., 2005, 131-43.

## External links[edit]

* UCLA Profile of Eric Gans
* Bibliography of Eric Gans
* Chronicles of Love and Resentment
* Chroniques d'outre-Atlantique
* Anthropoetics: The Journal of Generative Anthropology
* Generative Anthropology Society & Conference
* Bibliography of Generative Anthropology

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